Family Court Adviser (Social Worker) - Work After First Hearing - Covering Cornwall, Plymouth and Devon

Job content

Dedicated. Supportive. Unique. Join an organisation that’s just like you.

Here at Cafcass we support over 140,000 children and their families every year, safeguarding and promoting the welfare of each and every child and ensuring their voice is heard in Family Proceedings, which we’ll sure you agree is very important work.

Let’s make a difference. Together.

Whether you’re one of our Social Workers or work in our Corporate or Business Services teams, everyone here as a critical role to play. And so, if you join us asFamily Court Adviserin our teams covering Cornwall, Plymouth and Devonyou’ll see further references to ‘Together’ as this is the name of our new relationship-based practice framework.

Built around our values, it is at the heart of the work we do and encourages us to be pro-active and to look for the strengths in ourselves and others, to build positive relationships with our colleagues, our partners and with the children and families that we work with.

If this is the type of culture you think you can thrive in and you are motivated by making a difference for children and families, then read on.

Benefits That Really Benefit You.

Before we tell you more about the role, let us talk about some of the benefits of joining the largest employer of Social Workers in England as few organisations understand the professional and personal challenges as well as we do.

We know you want to be rewarded appropriately, you want time away from work to manage your wellbeing, spend time with those important to you, help to secure your future and be trusted to work autonomously.

We are also offering a ‘Golden Hello’ payment of £4,000 and further information on this payment and terms and conditions will be provided in due course should you be successful.

This will be on top of a competitive salary and you’ll get an excellent holiday allowance (28 days + Bank Holidays), a Local Government pension with 19.4% employer contribution, Health and Wellbeing cash plan, and the potential to bring your continuous service with you - which could mean you have 33 days holiday from day one. There are also a range of other benefits that collectively makes for a great package with a highly supportive, caring employer.

Location, location, location

Whilst the offices for our teams coveringDevon, Plymouth and Cornwallare inExeterandPlymouth, your proximity to the office is not essential.

We have a vacancy in our Exeter team and vacancies in our Plymouth team

Long before the pandemic, our teams have been used to working remotely and we achieve this through providing the right equipment (touch screen laptop and iPhone) and creating a culture of trust, flexibility and autonomy that enables you to manage your time so you can be where you need to be to perform effectively and achieve a healthy balance between your professional and personal life.

And to help with this, every effort will be made to ensure your caseload suits you geographically to avoid you having to cover too large an area and for some of our teams, there is a limited requirement to travel on a regular basis anyway.

It takes someone special to be a Family Court Adviser

Being a Family Court Adviser is very rewarding - but it’s not for everyone. You must be a Social Work England registered social worker who’s organised, resilient and able to work independently. Confident in your abilities, you’ve worked with children and families for three years or longer. Now you’re ready to take decisions and speak up in court as part of our talented Cafcass team.

Ready to find out more being a Family Court Adviser?

We’re currently recruiting for an experienced, talented, passionate Social Worker to join us in our Work After First Hearing teams that are based in both Exeter and Plymouth, that will work across Cornwall, Devon and Plymouth. When you click through to our website, we will tell you a little bit more about the work itself and the skills, qualities and experience we’re looking for.

In the Work After First Hearing team, you’ll use your social work skills and experience to understand what the child needs, want’s and feels. You’ll then advise the Family Courts on the best course of action for the child by providing confident, powerful, and succinct written case analysis and make recommendations to the court. You’ll also attend court and be an advocate for the child, ensuring their voice is not lost.

If you would like to informally find out about this role before deciding to apply, you are welcome to contact the Recruiting Manager, Catherine Marren by email orKatrina Swainby email advising of the best number to contact you on and most suitable time. However, please note all applications must be completed online as we cannot accept applications / CVs by email

We represent children and families from diverse backgrounds. We want our staff to mirror this.

We particularly welcome applications from individuals from diverse backgrounds as we strive to ensure our workforce reflects the diversity of the children and families we work with. We are also a Disability Confident Employer which further underlines our commitment to employ, train, retain and develop the careers of colleagues with disabilities.

Timelines we’re working to

If you apply, rest assured that we will review your application promptly and endeavour to let you know if we’d like to have an initial interview with you as soon as we can. If that goes well for both you and us then we’ll look to progress you to a final interview on a date and time to suit everyone.

Close Date

We know how busy Social Workers are, so we’d like to give you some dates for your diary to help you understand the timescales we are working to:

Friday 06 January 2023

Telephone Interview

Tuesday 10 and Thursday 12 January 2023

Panel Interview

Thursday 19 and Friday 20 January 2023

We look forward to hearing from you.

Please be advised successful applicants will be subject to a range of pre-engagement checks, including a Disclosure and Barring Service check (DBS). In accordance with the DBS code of practice and our own policy, should an individual have a declared criminal offence an individual assessment will be completed. Further information on what the assessment covers can be found by viewing the Cafcass DBS policy.Top of Form

Finally, if you want to find out a bit more about us why should consider joining us visit https://www.cafcass.gov.uk/careers or if you wish to view all of our current vacancies, go to Current Cafcass Vacancies.